Love Trigger Report:

How to turn your man into a geniewho will grant your wishes and

desires!

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Introduction – “A Very Strange Teapot”

I could start off by explaining what the Genie Method is.

I could tell you why you should use it, and the many amazing things that will begin to happen in your life as you do. I could tell you that once you learn to communicate with your man in a way that he really understands, you can make him want what you want, and so he’ll start doing things for you that he otherwise wouldn’t do.

I might tell you how we’re going to explore, step-by-step, what to do to finally get your man to really put in the work to help make your relationship everything you know, deep down, that it could be.

And I could tell you that, when you put the principles in this book into practice, you’ll see a change in your man so powerful, he’ll really start to seem like a genie who waitsto grant your wishes and make you happy.

But I’m not going to do any of those things. Instead, I’d like to introduce you to Sheila.

A story.

Sheila did not want to be where she was.

It was dusty, dark, and smelled like moth balls in her grandmother’s basement. She felt like she’d moved about four thousand boxes today, and she was doing it by herself. By herself! She shook her head just thinking about it.

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It wouldn’t have been so bad, all the work she had to do now that Nanna had passed away and Sheila had to move all the stuff out of her old basement—but her husband had all but refused to help her.

She’d asked him four times when he’d be available to help, and he had made excuse after excuse, until finally, she had given up and decided to just do it herself.

She could just see him in her mind’s eye as she dropped another six-ton box on the cold concrete floor—laying on the couch, his fingers orange from Cheezy Balls or whatever they were called, getting greasy cheese dust all over the TV remote as he flipped through the channels. She added cleaning off the TV remote to the long list of things she was going to have to do this weekend.

A cloud of dust rose as Sheila dropped another box on the ground by the stairs, and she felt her eyes beginning to sting. She coughed a few times. She waved the dust away from her face with one hand, and walked back towards the corner of the basement where the rest of the boxes were stacked.

Some of these old things were going to be thrown away, and others would be sold. Some of them Sheila would put in her car and take back to her house. She wondered if her husband would lift a finger to help her when she got back. She doubted it, and that made her mad all over again. He’d make some dumb excuse about his toe hurtingor a really important game being on, and then he’d go right back to zoning out.

She slid another box off of the stack in the corner, and put it on the floor. The only light came from a single bulb that hung from the ceiling, with a string that turned it onand off. The light swung slightly back and forth, which made all the shadows move just a little bit. It would have been creepy if Sheila had been any less absorbed in howfrustrated she was with that incredibly selfish man of hers.

She opened the box, expecting to find books. Instead, this was full of old picture frames and knick-knacks from when Nanna lived in the really big house. She lifted a few frames—all full of old photographs of Nanna and her husband doing things

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together. Sheila wondered if her grandmother had ever had problems like this with hergrandfather. Had he flatly refused to help her do things?

Had he made excuses and pretended to have selective hearing? From these pictures, it sure didn’t look like it. In fact, it looked like Nanna and Grandpa had done all kinds of things together.

Sheila lifted a picture of her grandmother and grandfather gardening together out of the box, thinking about how she and her husband never did anything like that together. She sighed, and went to put the picture back in the box. But something glinted in the dirty light, deeper inside the box. She put the picture aside, and reachedinto the box to pull out whatever it was.

It looked like a cross between a golden teapot and an oil lamp. It was covered in strange carvings, and was dirtier than anything else in this whole dirty basement. But something about it was… mesmerizing. It looked like something from another world, or a fantasy book.

Sheila pulled down the sleeve of her oversized shirt to rub away some of the dirt. When she did, something extraordinary happened.

Smoke billowed from the spout of the odd golden teapot, and Sheila was so startled she dropped it. It clattered on the ground, and Sheila backed up until she hit the concrete wall. She stood there, flat against the wall, watching the purple smoke still rising from the spout of her strange find.

The smoke seemed to fill the whole room, and Sheila thought she smelled exotic spices. The smoke slowly swirled and moved, and before her unbelieving eyes, there appeared what could only be a genie.

The genie rubbed at his eyes, and looked around. He was wearing a turban, and he

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was shirtless. Sheila couldn’t help but admire his purple 8-pack abs.

“Who has summoned me?” the genie said. He saw Sheila still flattened against the wall. “Ahh, there you are.”

“What… what’s going on? Is this a dream?”

“I am a genie, and this is not a dream. I’m assuming you’ve heard of genies? Three wishes, ‘your wish is my command’—so on and so forth?”

“Uhh… yeah.”

“Well, here’s your big moment. Go ahead. Three wishes. I’m ready when you are.”

This is a very sarcastic genie, Sheila thought.

“I wish… I wish for my husband to really love me and actually do things for me!”

“Your wish is my comm… Wait. I can’t do that. I can’t change anybody’s behavior,” thegenie said. Sheila felt herself getting angry again.

“Why not?!” she demanded.

“Those are the rules. However,” and the genie paused to think for a moment. “I could show you how to get what you really want out of your man.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Follow me,” the genie said, and took Sheila’s hand, leading her up and out of her

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grandmother’s dusty old basement.

And they lived happily ever after…?

The rest of the story is probably interesting, but we’ll get into it later.

You may not stumble over any literal magic lamps, whether you’re dating around, in a serious relationship, or even already married to your One True Love (or maybe just your One Last Chance). But you can turn the manin your life into a genie who will grant your wishes and really make you happy. And you don’t have to suffer under some arbitrary limit on wishes. You don’t get three. You get as many as you want.

But, as we’ll see later, you have to pick your wishes, and make them very clear. A genie can’t do anything for you if you don’t know what to wish for. You’ll end up with a very frustrated genie, and no closer to receiving anything that you desire. Communicating with the man in your life, your ‘real’ genie, works the same way.

But, as he explained,even a magical genie like the one Sheila found down in her grandmother’s basement can’t make someone do something they don’t want to do. You can’t control anyone else. And fortunately, none of what we’ll cover in this book will be aimed at controlling anyone.

First of all, that approach never works.Secondly, there is another way. And it works farbetter than trying to control your man.I’ll show you how to make him want to do for you the things you really want him to do for you. And it’s always better when someonedoes something for you because they wanna, isn’t it?

If you’re one of those unlucky women who’s ever received a favor or a present from someone because they felt obligated or compelled to do something nice for you, then you know from firsthand experience how distinctly unsatisfying that can be.

So stick with me, and I’ll show you how to get your genie granting your wishes

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because he just can’t wait to make you happy.

I’ll start with the first things first: learning to speak Genie. We’ll go over this in great detail, covering everything from how your man thinks, to what he wants most out of his relationship with you, to how to get an idea into his head without making him feel like he was asked to(or worse, that he was guilted into it—yuck!).

Then comes the “hard” part: deciding what your wishes will be. If you’re one of those lucky women who’ve ever found an actual magic lamp half-buried in a box of your grandmother’s old knick-knacks (which is, honestly, pretty rare), then you know how hard this can actually be. But fear not! We’ll talk about how to go about getting past those things that seem like what you want, but are actually beside the point when it comes to what will really make you happy in that special relationship.

It seems obvious that your genie is useless unless you actually wish for something, but the majority of women make this big mistake all the time when it comes to communicating with their men. You’ll see in a later chapter how you may actually be telling your genie—quite without realizing it—that you like things just the way you are.You may be telling him that you don’t want any wishes.

“He should already know” just doesn’t cut it. I know that probably sounds harsh, but think about it: you certainly wouldn’t mind telling your personal genie what you wanted, and neither do you need to feel bad about having to tell your man what you want. In the end, the trade-off is a good one, because while you may have to bite the bullet and just tell him what you want, you get to actually have those things. And that sure beats sitting around and feeling bad because your man hasn’t done what you wanted.

Armed with your trusty English-Genie dictionary, and confidently aware of what you actually want out of your relationship, you can pick your wishes, get them across in a way your man will understand, and start to enjoy the truly amazing results that come from approaching your relationship in this way.

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“But my man doesn’t want to grant me wishes,” you might be saying. “All he cares about is himself!”

He may very well be acting like it. He may seem complacent, bored with you, or interested in everything in the universe except how to make you happy. It’s probably safe to say that a majority of women deal with frustration in this area. They can’t seem to figure out how to communicate their desires in a way that gets them heard, and actually works.

In order to make this a reality, we’re going to talk about how to talk to your man and act around him so that you reach his logical brain, his emotional brain (yes, he does have one), and his subconscious mind. Next thing you know, your man will be doing all the things for you that you thought he would, and more. In fact, he’ll be on the lookout for things he can do for you. You’ll get “extra wishes,” that you didn’t even have to ask for.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You have to get really clear about what it is you want—like a billboard with neon letters and strobe lightsthat he can’t help but see. And you have to communicate with him in a way that avoids attacking him, or berating him, or trying to make him feel guilty for not doing the things you want him to do. After all, how much effect would that have on a genie? Very little, if you ask me.

“If You Only Knew the Power…”

Before Sheila found that lamp, her life was probably not so different from yours. She’dbeen married to her husband for a few years, and things had really started to settle down. She had, like many women today, started to notice that the romance was reallydraining out of her relationship.

As you may have noticed, she was getting pretty frustrated with how little her

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husband would ever help her do anything. He preferred to do whatever he felt like, and no matter how many times Sheila asked him for help, he was always too busy (or maybe his toe was hurting that day).

Here’s what a typical day dealing with her man looked like for Sheila.

She packs up her things and gets ready to leave work. She heads out the door, returning the receptionist’s happy weekend wishes.

She’s relieved that it’s Friday, and wonders if her man will be home when she gets there. She gets off of work at the same time he does, but she left a little early today, so he may be in after her.

Sheila pulls into the driveway, and collects her things from the car to head inside.

When she walks through the front door, there’s a tie, still tied, lying in the middle of the floor. She picks it up, and walks a little further into the house. She sees a wrinkled white dress shirt thrown over the back of the dining room chair. She picks that up, too,and finds two dress shoes pushed into a corner of the kitchen.

She finally arrives in the living room, her arms full of men’s dress clothes, as well as her bags. He’s on the couch, in his undershirt and underwear, and the TV is on. The room smells a little like a mix between beer and a fart.

“Hey, honey. I’m home. You wouldn’t believe what happened at work today…”

“Hold on,” he says. “I’m watching this.”

“And you threw your clothes on the floor?”

“I’ll pick it up,” he says as if he didn’t even hear her.

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When his show is over, she goes to sit next to him on the couch. He doesn’t really lookat her.

“Hey, so how was work?” she says.

“Good.”

“Valerie told me she’s having her baby next month. She’s so happy about it.”

“Honey, I told you I don’t want to have kids yet.”

“That wasn’t…?” Sheila trails off, confused.

This scenario is all too much the reality for many women. And it might not be so bad ifit wasn’t like that all the time. But suppose it was? Actually, I take that back. You might not have to suppose: it might actually be that way.

But Sheila put the Genie Method, as taught to her by the genie she found in her grandmother’s basement, into practice, and about a year later, something incredible happened:

Something is different today, Sheila thought to herself. She didn’t know how she knew,but she could definitely tell. Something just felt off. She was cleaning up to leave work, and her boss was looking at her with a weird smirk on his face. It was a little creepy, to be honest, and she made sure her skirt was all the way down over her knees as she watched him out of the corner of one eye.

She breathed a sigh of relief when he went away, and wondered what had gotten into him that day. Everyone had been acting strangely all day, she thought, and she couldn’t seem to figure out why. She had asked the older woman who worked in the

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cubicle next to hers—who always smelled like cigarettes and old-lady perfume—and the woman had offered no help. She hadn’t had the courage to ask anybody else. In fact, she was a little scared of what it might be. Maybe I’m about to get fired, she tried not to think.

She finally had everything in her bag, and she grabbed her purse from under the deskand looked over her shoulder a few times as she headed for the door. Her boss was standing at the reception desk, leaning over the desk and still smirking. It was even creepier now.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. He seemed like he’s about to burst out laughing at her, but she still couldn’t figure out why.

She wished him a half-hearted good afternoon and sidled out the door and down the hallway. But the feeling of something being weird wouldn’t quite go away. She made aquick stop in the bathroom to make sure she didn’t have any hair or facial disasters that might cause people to look at her funny all day. But nothing presented itself, so she headed back out of the bathroom and out the front door of the building.

The feeling had faded by the time she pulled into the driveway at home, and she was ready to forget all about it. When she stepped inside the front door, however, it came right back, practically smashing her in the face. There stood her husband, looking her you with a similar—but much less creepy—grin.

“What?” she said as she dropped her bags on the kitchen counter. “Everyone has beenlooking at me like that all day, and I can’t figure out why. What is going on?”

His weird smile broke into a full grin, and he opened his arms for a hug. Sheila huggedhim back, smiling a little despite herself. But she was no closer to getting an answer.

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“What?” She practically yelled at him, grinning now, too.

“We’re leaving,” he said, his hands on her shoulders.

“Where are we going?”

“The beach. For a week. Tomorrow morning.” Her heart fluttered, and then dropped. She looked at him, charmed, but a little disappointed.

“Honey, I can’t just up and leave; my boss…” realization started to dawn.

“He’s known about this for three weeks,” her man said, confirming her realization.

“Everything’s already taken care of. I was going to pack for you, but I know I’d pick allthe wrong things. Are you excited?”

Most women have no idea how to turn that first guy into the second one. But Sheila did it, and it worked for her. It’s surprisingly simple, actually, once you understand what you have to do.

What this has to do with you.

If you’re reading this book—and you are—it’s a safe bet that you’re still in that phase before you learn how to speak Genie. In other words, you still can’t quite communicate with your man.

This means that you’re probably experiencing some common frustrations a lot of women have when they’re in that phase. But that’s okay: it is just a phase. And that means that, with the right tricks and techniques, you can move past that phase. You can get to a higher level of understanding. And what happens when you get there? Your relationship improves in ways that will truly amaze you.

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“Yeah, right.”

No, seriously.Look, I get that right now, you probably feel like you’re in a situation where you’re putting in 120% to your relationship. You’re really working hard and taking the pains to make sure your man’s needs are met.

Meanwhile, it seems like your man is putting in about 9.3%—just coasting right along,completely unaware that you’re exhausted from giving, and giving, and giving some more. You’re simply not okay with letting things go on as they are.

Your needs go unmet.

Sometimes, there are just a few things you really want in your relationship. You want that diamond necklace, or the nice dinner at that restaurant that’s just a little too expensive. Or maybe you just want a hug. All of those things are great. They make you feel awesome, beautiful—loved in every way. And they make up a big part of whatyou’re looking to get out of your relationship with your man.

But too many women start to feel, in the face of continuing relationship problems that just never seem to improve,that they really can’t expect to get what they really want out of their relationship—maybe even out of any relationship.

Talk about depressing! These women are doing all they can to hold onto the idea that the relationship they are in can ever reach the heights of feeling they just knew was supposed to be their happy destiny. But as the years pass, that happy future starts to look dimmer and dimmer.

Whether your relationship is on the rocks, or even if it’spretty stable, you can often start wondering if maybe you’re just asking too much. More often, though, by the timeyou get to that point, you’re probably ready to throw up your hands and just surrender.

Don’t do any of those things! It’s a lot easier than it sounds to turn this situation

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around. There is no reason in the world why you need to settle for anything less than what you know you deserve.

Now, a quick warning before we go any further: I know that it feels absolutely incredible when your man does just the right thing at just the right moment—without having to be told. You may even feel like that’s exactly what you deserve. You have, after all, put some serious work into this relationship.

However, take a moment and consider this: you essentially have two choices right now. The first option is to continue to wonder why your man doesn’t seem to be putting in any effort, and to wish that he would just take the hint already, and start doing more. The second is to leave behind the idea that your man should just automatically know and provide what you really want.

Just by being here, it’s already clear to me that your relationship is not where you want it to be, so you have to be willing to put in a little bit more work to get it there. In other words, you have to be willing to make that second choice, before any of this will work. And that means leaving behind the idea that your man should know you well enough to know what you want. He doesn’t.

Okay, we got the bad news out of the way. Time for some good news.

Now, don’t get mad at me if I tell you that much of the work that you have been doing has been… a little misdirected. It’s okay—you just didn’t know. That’s the purpose of this book.

With this in hand as your trusty guide, you’ll know exactly when to put in that energy, and when to pull back and leave a situation alone. You’ll know when it’s a good idea to stop trying so hard. You’ve been doing a lot of ‘helpful hinting,’ and maybe even a little nagging or guilting (be honest, now—everybody does it now and again!) to try and get your man to come around. You’ll see later on why this is 100% the wrong approach to take, and get a few handy tips that actually do work at getting your man

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to start doing the things for you that you know you deserve.

In the end, armed with these tactics, you actually will find that you can get more out of the relationship without having to put in all that wasted work you’re almost certainly doing right now. It’s pretty tough to say ‘no’ to that kind of deal.

You can spin your wheels for a very long time without accomplishing anything, and stress yourself out in the process. Most of that stress actually comes out because whatyou’re doesn’t seem to be having any effect. That’s when you start wondering if maybe he just doesn’t care. At the very least, you’re probably asking yourself why he won’t get his act together. You’re wondering why he seems unable to give you the attention you deserve.

I feel… nothing?

Another big problem comes up when your man pulls that classic male stereotype move where he stops communicating—especially when he starts having feelings.

It’s a stereotype for a reason, unfortunately, because all too many men don’t really understand how to communicate their feelings to a woman. Much as you struggle to get him to understand you, he struggles with exactly the same thing. You suspect thatthere are feelings in there somewhere, hiding underneath all those layers of social conditioning that tell him to stuff his emotions deep down inside him and never listen to what they might be trying to tell him. So you try to bring them out. After all, you feel better when you talk over how you’re feeling. So the same should work for him.

In fact, most men do appreciate the opportunity to talk about things like that. They just need to feel comfortable doing so, and be able to get the kind of response that makes sense to them. Fear not, however, because we’ll talk about this more later on.

Either way, as far as you’re concerned, sometimes it seems like he might as well be a smelly robot with a football addiction who wants you to make dinner. And doesn’t he

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always seem to turn into that demanding robot right when you really need to talk about something important? Or maybe the conversation was just about to turn deep and intimate, and suddenly he turned off, zoned out, and became obsessed with the TV. This is a deeply frustrating experience, and the unfortunate truth is that just aboutevery woman out there has experienced it. Most of them probably have no idea why.

Contrary to what you might hear elsewhere, however, men do have feelings, and they do discuss them—openly. That sounds like total nonsense to you right now, I’m sure, but it’ll make more sense later on (hint: most of the time, they’re just doing it in a way that you don’t see). When we get into the nuts and bolts of how you can make the Genie Method work for you, we’ll tell you exactly how to use this very fact to your advantage.

He gets lazy.

There’s another stereotype—maybe a little truer than some of the other ones—that says that a man all too often acts like Prince Charming in shiny white armor for the first few weeks, months, or even years. By the time the courting period is over, you’re completely hooked. Your girlfriends are jealous.

You’ve nabbed a catch. But then Prince Charming sheds his white armor, and it starts collecting dust in a corner. He plops down on the couch, promptly grows a beer belly, whines when he’s sick, and demands everything in the world from you, giving little in return.

“Who are you and what have you done with my white knight?!” you shout, poking at him with a broom handle. He grunts and waves you away, mumbling something about“the game.” He’s pulled away, and seemingly fallen into being totally complacent.

How could he start acting like you’re not even there? Did he forget that there’s a woman in his life who wants to be held and taken care of now and again? You try giving more, hoping that he’ll see it and reciprocate, but it doesn’t work, and so you bang your head against the wall until you have a Looney ‘Toons bump on your

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forehead, and contemplate giving up.

This situation also has an easy resolution, however, once you understand what you’re doing—or, maybe more importantly, not doing—to make him think that’s okay. Even if there’s no way he could think that it is okay (maybe you’ve plainly told him so), he doesn’t know how to fix it. Here’s the good news: if he knew what to do, and he knewthat it would work, then he’d do it. I know, looking at him over there melting into the couch, it sure doesn’t look like it. But stick around, because not only is change possible, but I’m going to show you exactly how to get it.

Basically, once you understand the Genie Method, not only can you get him talking, caring, and helping—you can get him to want to do all those things. Imagine your man actually helping around the house. He picks up after himself and helps take care of the kids and fixes things that are broken.

Imagine your man surprising you with flowers, with night out on the town, with surprise vacations to Fiji to… alright, I won’t get carried away. But you hardly need surprise vacations on island paradises to really feel fulfilled, right? From where you’re standing, I’d be willing to bet that even a little change in a positive direction would feel great. But don’t head off bikini shopping and planning how you’ll manipulate your man into giving you that island trip. It doesn’t quite work that way.

You can’t control him.

I am not going to teach you how to control your man. First of all, that would take all the fun out of the relationship. You really might as well just get yourself a robot that sits on the couch and watches football at that point.

Secondly, when you find that by using the Genie Method, you’re able to get your man to do things you really want from him because he really wants to do them, you’re going to feel fantastic. I wouldn’t rob you of that feeling by granting you powers of control over him. Lastly, I don’t actually know how to control men, so I don’t really

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have any powers to grant you. But that’s beside the point.

Now, you probably already knew all of that. So why am I even bothering to bring it up? Because it is fundamentally important that you make sure that not even the tiniestpart of you wants that.

If your man smells even a hint of manipulation from you, your genie will retreat into his magic golden teapot and he will not come back out. At least, not for another thousand years or so. You can look forward to lots more time spent wishing that he’d come out of his zombie funk and do some of those things you want him to do. Not only does it fail to work, it often backfires horribly.

What we’re trying to accomplish instead is to show you how to change a few simple things in the way you communicate your wants and desires to your man, so he’ll knowwhat to do to make you happy. And that, in the end, is what it’s really all about. And that’s because deep down inside, your man really wants to do the things for you that you really want.

“Then why isn’t he doing these things already?”

I’m going to wax a little harsh again, so get ready. If you find that your man is not pulling his weight in the relationship, it’s probably because you let him get away with it. I’m not saying you’re responsible for his actions—you’re not. But it’s important to understand that your man not only wants to make you happy, he’s programmed to respond to a certain set of stimuli from you. That’s why it’s so important you learn to speak his language.

He’s got rocket thrusters that are programmed to kick in and get him into action whenyou push the right buttons. It’s not control—it’s communication. If you only knew the power of the lamp you hold, when you understand how to push those buttons and gethim motivated—you’d stop worrying about fixing your relationship. It would seem instead like it was fixing itself.

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In fact, in the next section, we’re going to talk about how you may be communicating exactly the opposite of what you want, by sending unintentional messages with your actions and your words. A confused genie is a genie that can’t give you anything, leastof all the right thing. So let’s look at how things work in your relationship, and see if we can’t get any wiser.

What -“Life with a Magic Lamp”

How to send all the wrong messages.

Remember I told you I’d explain how you’re actually broadcasting through your words and actions that you’re just fine with the way things are? This is that part.

If you’ve ever so much as talked to a man, you’re probably aware that they think very differently than most women do. I don’t want to belabor this point too much, but let’s quickly review what we know about the basic differences between how men and women think. You may find that just this quick recap helps you to start to see the difference between a relationship that’s awesome, and one that’s not-so-awesome.

Your man is logical. Duh—you knew that already. It’s in every relationship book and article out there. While a woman is far more in tune with her emotions than the average man (who sometimes isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling), a man is far more likely to analyze a particular situation logically. He’ll look for a clear logic chain. His brain, meant more for solving problems than for being in touch with his feelings, feels much more comfortable analyzing something than trying to discover and act on how he’s feeling about it.

That’s where that smelly football-watching robot comes from. But that robot has someimportant lines of code in his programming that you need to be aware of, because they can make the difference between the man who’s surprising you with flowers and chocolates, and the man who’s glued to the couch.

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Those lines of code program him to be on the lookout for results. When he thinks about taking action on something, he looks to see what the results will be. If something he does leads to great results, he’ll continue to do that same thing. He wanted you closer to him back when he was being charming and spontaneous, back during early courtship. He did what he thought would get those result he wanted. Hence, he was charming and spontaneous.

Now, he’s got you, and things have settled down. He likes the way things are, and youseem to be happy—after all, you’re still here—so he doesn’t see much value in continuing to do those things.

In other words, he’s gotten a little complacent in the relationship. It’s a natural tendency, and everybody does it now and again. You’ve probably felt complacent about many things in your life before, so you may be able to put yourself somewhat inhis shoes.

Things are more or less okay, thinks to himself, and I don’t really feel motivated to go above and beyond right now. Maybe tomorrow… and that’s his last thought before he zones out completely.

So what is it that keeps him in that state? Why won’t he, y’know, snap out of it? He hasn’t been given the right motivation to do it. That’s where your part of this comes in. Your man acts the way he does because you let him get away with it.

The way you do so is by not effectively communicating your thoughts and desires to him. It’s a harsh truth, coming as it does at the end of a long road of frustrations with your partner. But we have to get those hard truths out of the way, so you can start to change your approach and see the results you want. You have to communicate what you want.

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He can’t hear your feelings.

You’re probably shaking your fist at me and yelling “but I do communicate what I want!” (and starting to attract some weird looks from passersby in the process).I can understand your frustration. But we’re not done here, yet.

Indeed, you probably have tried to communicate your thoughts and feelings to him. You’ve probably especially tried to communicate to him that you want him to do more than he is currently doing. But for some reason, he still fails to get the message.

This goes back to the logic and emotion difference. Remember, you’re the other half ofthat equation. You’re probably operating more from an emotional standpoint than he does. Which means you have to edit your communication a little bit.

Most women try to communicate their desires, and then their frustration, by sharing their feelings. This goes right over your man’s head, most of the time, unless he’s been to some sort of counseling school, or is unusually well-versed in relationship communication. Those men actually do normally get the message when you communicate that way. And most of them are aware enough to be able to take the right steps, giving you what you need to be truly happy and resolving the whole issue just like that. But those men are not for everybody—you can find some of them carrying purses (“it’s a messenger bag.” Uh-huh. Suuure it is) and getting pedicures.

So for those of you who are dealing with more normal men, you have to take into account what he hears when you try to speak to him in feelings.

“Honey, can we talk?” you say.

“What did I do wrong?” he says.

“No! Nothing! You’re fine.” He’s probably starting to zone out already at this point. “I just wanted to sprook dorng tweedle smoot.”

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“Huh?”

“It’s no big deal. Sometimes I just feel gwack storl daudle bram. You can understand that, right?”

What does a guy do in a situation like this? He nods, pretends to understand, and then goes back to whatever he was doing as soon as you go away, wondering what she was talking about?

When a guy talks about his feelings with his male friends—which does happen, and often—he doesn’t look for the other man to “support” him. Most of the time, in fact, it doesn’t even sound like feelings talk. This is because, as we’ve said, most men are logic-oriented. They think in logical terms, and they talk the same way.

So two guys will discuss something that happened to one of them, and you’ll hear them reason through it. This is actually their feelings talk—the focus just isn’t on the feelings themselves. The logic that goes along with those feelings is more important. So if you can talk to a man logically, you’re much more likely to get through to him.

And he’s much more likely to feel comfortable talking about his feelings to you.

That’s why it’s so important you get this next point, and put it into practice when you start to use the Genie Method.

Speak the Genie Language.

The result of a situation like the one above, repeated over and over during the course of a long relationship—or even a short one, for that matter—is that both partners go

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through the day not quite sure of what the other one wants. You wonder why your man acts the way he does, and he wonders what happened to that sweet little thing he fell in love with.

Communication, in other words, between you and your genie is taking place in two totally different languages. So, as far as he can tell, he’s really not getting any meaningful communication from you.

And when you don’t communicate your wishes, a man does whatever he wants. He has a certain natural state that he was more or less in when you found him. When he was single, and he was home alone sitting on the couch, he could fart and walk around naked and leave old pizza boxes in a big pile next to the coffee table, and nobody would say a word. Many guys do this before a woman comes into their life.

When she does, he straightens up his act really quickly. He cleans up his place anytime there’s a chance you might see it, shaves and showers and puts on his fanciest shirt when you’re around—he’s taking steps to win you over. It’s that results-oriented logical thinking again. Since you’re with him, it seems to have worked.

But eventually he doesn’t have to win you over anymore, so he slowly begins to go back to his natural state. He may be older and less inclined to make pizza-box forts in the living room now than he once was. However, his return to that natural state will involve some behaviors that you don’t necessarily like. Chief among those is probably that he begins to neglect doing all those little things that can make you so happy—when he remembers to do them.

In other words, your genie hasn’t heard you asking for any wishes lately, and he’s starting to think maybe he doesn’t have to grant you any. He starts doing whatever hefeels like. He may have even started wondering if perhaps you are his genie—maybe you’re just here to give him wishes.

This is clearly not how things are supposed to go. Of course you love doing things to

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please your man. We just need to get him doing the same for you.

What to do instead.

So let’s talk solution.

We’re going to start somewhere that may seem odd to you at first. And that’s with working on you. This means getting clear about who you are and what you want out of a relationship. All too often, relationship problems arise because the woman is not even really sure what she wants.

Right now, your list of wishes might look something like this:

1. More romance.

2. A man who cares deeply.

3. I have no idea, but not this.

Now, it’s time for more harsh truth: your genie can’t really grant any of those wishes. At least not in their current form.

“What does romance mean to you?” the genie asks after your first wish.

“How will you know your man cares deeply?” he asks after the second.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” he says after the third. And there go all your wishes.

So instead, you’re going to have to get clear inside yourself what, specifically, you want out of the relationship. This could mean things like anniversary surprises, romantic gestures like flowers or chocolates (or whatever you really like—it doesn’t have to be those!), or surprise vacations to Fiji! (Disclaimer: I am in no way

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guaranteeing that by practicing the principles in this book you will end up in Fiji. I know I keep mentioning it; just don’t get the wrong idea.)

In the next chapter, we’ll get into how to get to the heart of what you really desire outof a relationship, so you’ll be able to see very clearly exactly what you want. Then, getting it is as simple as communicating those desires to your man. Just don’t assume that you already know exactly what you want, and skip straight to the part about communicating!

You may think you know, but if you really take the time to go through your desires, you may find that what you really want isn’t what you thought it was. We’ll go over the kinds of things you can reasonably expect out of your man and get, so you’ll knowfor sure you aren’t asking for anything unreasonable. You’ll know right where to put your boundaries (that’s in italics because it’s important) to make sure he doesn’t wheedle his way out of giving you what you really want.

All of this brings up a point we should probably address before going on.

Contradictory wishes don’t work.

Once you sit down and figure out what you really want (remember—don’t skip that part!), you’re already halfway through this step. It’s the natural result of knowing exactly what you want things to look like.

What I’m talking about is consistency. You have to line up your thinking, your words, and your actions before the wishes you make can really take effect. Deciding what youreally want, and finding ways to communicate those desires to your man—asking for your wishes—is the first step. Making sure your actions are consistent with those thoughts and words makes double-sure that your man gets the message, and remembers it. It makes sure that he makes the things you want part of his daily thoughts.

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And eventually, he’ll start to change his behavior.

What does it look like to make your behavior consistent with your thoughts (what you really want) and your words (what you ask for)? It means two things: rewards, and boundaries.

Give him a big reward.

Hearing it put this way might make a lot of men angry, but when you go about trying to change a man’s behavior, it’s often a good idea to think of it as “training.” Men hate the idea that a woman can “train” them to do anything—it goes against that pride andindependence that most men hold (or say they hold) so dear. But it actually works. Here’s how.

Assuming you’ve already decided what you want, and have told your man this in a way that makes sense to him, you have to reward him when he does what you want.

If he really did surprise you with flowers and chocolates on random days all last month, make sure you give him hearty praise for it. That’s a great time to hit him withsome feelings:

“Honey, I feel so happy when you surprise me like that! It made my whole day!” Now give him a big, wet, sloppy kiss. Get lipstick all over him. He might pretend to hate it, but you know he secretly loves the attention.

Now, it’s time for some behavioral rewards. You might want to try doing a little “givingback” for the things he did for you. Some women are going to take issue with that idea. They’re going to complain that they already do so much for their man, and get so little in return. But nobody said changing your man’s behavior was going to be easy. So break out your Wonder Woman costume—super powers of understanding and effort may be required.

Once you can accept the idea that you’ll have to do a little extra work to get your man

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to change his behavior, you can start to think of things you can do that he will notice that will really let him know how much you appreciated what he did. They don’t have to be things that require a lot of work, either. They can be as simple as making a pointof giving him lots of attention one night, cooking for him and listening to whatever he wants to talk about.

Sure, you may not care about the ins and outs of fishing or automotive electronics (or whatever he’s into), but just sitting and listening for a while can really make him feel great. A man never feels as good as when he feels like the woman of his choice cares deeply about him.

What you’re doing here is building up momentum. Every time you successfully get himto do something for you that you want, and you respond by doing something nice for him, you’re creating a new pattern. Instead of the old pattern, of doing less and less—and getting more and more frustrated and distant—you’re fostering a pattern of doing more and more, and getting closer—and getting less and less frustrated.

Set boundaries—and stick to them.

The other side of the coin is boundaries. Most people think of “reward and punishment,” but here we’re going to talk about rewards and boundaries. The reason for this goes back to the animal-training metaphor we talked about a minute ago.

Most animal trainers understand that negative reinforcement—punishing bad behavior—doesn’t have nearly the effects that positive reinforcement—rewarding good behavior—does. Giving a dog a treat when it does something you want it to do is far better than beating it when it misbehaves. On top of a better-behaved dog, you get a happier dog in the bargain. People are no different. They respond much better to positive reinforcement.

Have you ever found a guy more attractive because someone told you to stay away from him? Or ever done something simply because you were told not to? You’re not

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crazy or overly rebellious—everybody hates being told what to do at least a little bit.

It’s part of human nature. Guys especially hate being told what to do.Even more especially when it comes from their wife or their girlfriend. It makes them feel like children, like they’re incapable of taking care of themselves or making decisions for themselves. You go from the love of his life to his mother when you do that.

But you can’t completely ignore bad behavior. Especially if it has a direct impact on your life. Here’s where expectations can come to your rescue. People respond to expectations way better than they do to demands.

Instead of telling your man what to do over and over again—or complaining that he doesn’t do what you want—try expecting more of him. You can communicate this to him in a really positive way.You don’t have to berate him or criticize him at all. Just likepart of human nature is hating to be told what to do, there’s another part that hates to disappoint. As much as your man might hate when you tell him what to do, he hates even more having to disappoint you.

And men respect boundaries. When you set a boundary and refuse to compromise on your commitment, eventually his behavior will change.But you have to stick to your boundary until his behavior changes. This may be uncomfortable for a little while, for you as well as for him. He probably is not going to like it very much at first, either. Butthe payoff is definitely worth it, as he eventually figures out that you are simply not going to play along anymore.

We’ll show you specifically how to do this in the next chapter.

One last note on rewards and boundaries.

Remember we said that rewards work better than punishments? And how you have tomake sure that you do more of the rewarding and less of the punishing? You can’t justsnap your fingers and start doing that. You have to start to look at things a little

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differently. And this is another place where women make big mistakes that cost them dearly in the long run with their partners.

All too many women—and men, for that matter—are really, really focused on what they don’t want. This is a bad spot to be in. Why? Because it helps neither you nor your man get any better, or any happier. If you just focus on everything that’s wrong, and only communicate that to your man, not only will he not change his behavior, he’llstart to pull away from you. If everything you say to him is a criticism, a complaint, a nag, or a guilt-trip, he’s going to start to see you as a woman who’s impossible to please. Guys hate that. And they pull away from it. In fact, this is often right where cheating starts. It isn’t just about sex.

Sure, guys love sex, but most of the time, when a guy cheats, it has more to do with the fact that he used to get emotional rewards from his wife or girlfriend that he isn’t getting anymore. That’s not to say that if a guy cheats, it’s the woman’s fault—far from it. But I’d be willing to bet that if there was anything you could do to keep that from happening, you’d want to.

This is one of those things.

Whenever you look at a situation involving your man, look for what you can reward in the situation. You might have to look pretty hard, especially if your man’s been misbehaving badly lately. But there’s always something there. Hey, maybe all you can come up with right now is that he hasn’t killed anybody… today. That’s a good start. Keep looking for things, and keep rewarding them. You’ll find more.

This not only helps your man to change his behavior, it helps you change your outlook.When your outlook is different, it’s much easier to justify putting in the extra effort.

Men are real bloodhounds at sniffing out fake appreciation. The slightest smell of manipulation, and the whole thing falls apart. Suddenly, you’re trying to control him, he thinks, and he pulls that much further away. Worse, he no longer trusts you to be

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genuine with him. Now you’re in a way deeper hole with your relationship than you were before. So it pays to be able to be genuine when you go to appreciate your man.

All of this probably sounds like a lot to do right now, but never fear, because I’m not just here to preach at you. I’m gonna show you how to do all of it. Step by step. It’ll be so easy, you’ll wonder how you didn’t think of it yourself! (Well, sort of.)

How – “Getting Your Wishes Fulfilled”

I promised I’d give you the step-by-step rundown on what to do to get your man to quit putting in 9.3%, and start doing for you the things you really want in your relationship. And while every situation is a little different—the things you want are not what someone else might want, and one man’s lazy is another man’s great effort—there are five basic steps to turning your man into that genie we keep talking about.

Here are the steps.

1. Pick Your Wishes – Figure out what you want.

2.Learn to Speak Genie – Communicate your desires so he’ll understand them.

3.Ease In – Ask for little things first.

4.Housebreak your Genie – Use rewards and boundaries.

5.Give Him a Gentle Nudge – Remind him of your wishes.

Now, you’re probably already starting to get some ideas of how to put these into practice. That’s great! However, with others, you may be wondering just what they mean, or how to put them into practice.

It’s often true that, while you know intellectually what you should do in a particular situation, for whatever reason you don’t do it. Or maybe you know about a principle that should work in a relationship, but you just don’t know how to put it into practice.

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This is often because of your closeness to the situation. In other words, you don’t know what to do because you’re so mired in your current circumstances, that doing anything other than what you have been doing seems incomprehensible. So we’ll make it as easy as possible to start putting this into practice.

You don’t have to effect a magical 180-degree change overnight. In fact, that’s pretty unlikely. So you should approach these steps as a way to get the process started. Turning your man into a genie is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. You may have to go above and beyond what you think you should have to do. But the rewards—like getting your own personal genie—are always worth it.

Let’s get started.

The Steps Explained

Step 1: Pick Your Wishes – Figure out what you want.

We talked about this before, if you remember: you have to sit down and decide what you really want out of your relationship. Your genie will be completely unable to do anything if you don’t tell him what you actually want. And in order to do that, you have to know what you actually want.

Make the right wishes.

This goes back to why we list easy, actionable steps in the first place. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the moment, and to waste your early wishes on things that aren’t actually important. Maybe something happened recently that’s got you down, or frustrated. Maybe you tried to talk to your man about something, and he just wasn’t having it. Or maybe you’re at the end of your rope because he just won’t seem to listen, no matter what. We’ll actually cover in the next section what to do with guys who are really misbehaving.

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So it’s good to get past what you think you want, based on circumstances right now, and to instead sit down and make sure that the things you’re trying to get out of your man are the things that are really going to bring satisfaction to the relationship.

Let’s say you’ve been fighting with your man over who picks up the kids from soccer on Thursdays, and you read this book and put all your effort just into getting what youwant in that particular situation. If you stop there, and quit using these principles onceyou get what you want, you’ll be missing the full power of what’s offered here. I didn’tpromise that you could get him to do one or two more things—I promised you a genie!

Now, you may be wondering at this point: why not just ask for those things first, and then ask for what you want later? It’s a reasonable question, especially when I promised you that not only would your man turn into a genie who would grant you wishes, but that you’d be able to get unlimited wishes.

The reason involves the process you have to use to get those wishes. It takes work to get your man to change his behavior and start doing things for you. While getting vindicated on some little issue might feel good in the moment, it might do little for therelationship in the long run. And you’re after a good relationship in the end, right?

So it’s important to decide what you really want, and ask for that. When you get the things that you really want out of the relationship—when your man really steps up on the things that really matter to you—those other things tend to vanish, since they’re really quite unimportant in the end.

Getting to the heart of what you want.

The first thing to do is to relax. Get away from any negative situations with your man that are happening right now. Do something that you really enjoy until you settle down, or talk about whatever’s going on (talk to someone other than your man). Onceyou feel a little bit better, then you can sit down and start to get to the bottom of what

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you really want out of the relationship.

Oftentimes, a great way to do that is to go back and thinking about what it was that made you like the guy in the first place. Early courtship is the time when relationships often work the best and seem the happiest.This is because both partners are so willing to do anything for the other one. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could get back to that place, and instead of experiencing it as a passing phase, make that the natural state of the relationship?

I’d be willing to bet that’s a “yes.” Then that’s a great place to start. Remember what it was about the way your man acted during the early courtship period that made you so happy. Why did you get with this guy in the first place?

(Hint: if you married him for his money, you’re probably reading the wrong book!)

Now, see if you can find a small thing he once did, or that you’d like him to do. Don’t pick the big things (like vacations in Fiji) to start with. Your man may be pretty out of practice at being your genie. In fact, chances are he’s forgotten all about it. It’s your job to get him back there, but you have to ease him into it. Don’t risk making him think you’re trying to control him. That will backfire!

Got your small thing? Don’t read any further until you do. Remember, we’re putting in these practical steps so that you can see real results. And that’s what you want, isn’t it? We’ll discuss in a little more detail later why it’s so important to pick a small thing first—it has to do with your man’s psychology, and the psychology of people in general.

Not surprisingly, a lot of women end up wishing for very similar things. Let’s go over a few of these. See if any of your wishes fall into these categories. If not, that doesn’t mean you’re asking for something unreasonable. Keep reading for a list of things that are best not wished for, since they’re incredibly hard for your man to deliver, and probably won’t have very good results if you try to ask for them.

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You want to talk about something: If you’ve read anything that talks about relationships, you’ve probably heard about the concept of the silent man and the chattering woman. This might not be such a bad thing for you if he’d listen when you wanted to talk about something. But all too often, because your man likes to be silent when something is troubling him, he assumes that’s the best course of action for everybody, including you. So he may not be as available as you want him to be when you want to talk about something.

You want him to open up about something:When you feel strongly about something, your first impulse is to talk about it. His first impulse is probably to clam up and distract himself until the feeling goes away. Men are classic feelings-avoiders. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when your man is sullen and silent, or really grumpy, for a long time, it can really start to get to you. If you want your man to openup and just tell you what’s going on, then we can help! Read on!

You want him to fix things or do more around the house: Sheila had much the same problem. And there are thousands of other women who are in the same boat as you are, if this is one of your wishes. After all, men are supposed to a) protect you and b) fix things, right? Well… there’s more to it than that, but those two are definitelyon the list. Many a woman could list off the top of her head several things she wishes her man would do around the house—especially if he’s a handy type. He, on the otherhand, has other things he’d rather be doing, and he’s forgotten why he’s needed in the relationship.

You want him to give you things: These often sound like literal ‘wishes.’ It might just be a hug, more attention, or a listening ear now and again. On the other hand, maybe it’s something more material: a diamond necklace, flowers—or, as always, tripsto Fiji. We’ll talk about how to get your man to give you these things, whatever they might be.

You want him to be more romantic: Yes, I did say earlier that it would be very difficult for a genie to fulfill a wish like “bring back the honeymoon phase.” So it’s important that if you’re looking for more romance, you have a very clear idea of what

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that would look like.

That’s why you were supposed to down and decide what you really wanted. If you were really getting the things you wanted out of the relationship, it would probably bepretty romantic. There’s nothing wrong with wishing for romance, but there is something wrong with having vague wishes, because vague wishes generally don’t getfulfilled.

Don’t worry, though, because in a later section, you’ll find out how to bring back the kind of romance that spawns spontaneous gestures of love, like little romantic surprises. I’ll show you how to make your man start feeling romantic again, so he’ll start acting more romantically. It’s a lot simpler than you think!

Now, of course I have to deliver the bad news, as well. Just like genies can’t control people or make people fall in love with each other, there are some wishes that your man just can’t really grant very well. There aren’t many, but women commonly mistakenly wish for these things. When it doesn’t work,they get frustrated and wonderwhy the stupid Genie Method isn’t working. It’s not the genie’s fault—he’s got limitations, too.

Mind-reading: I hate to harp so heavily on deciding what you really want and communicating it, but it’s important, darn it. Your man cannot read your mind. He’s doing all he can to follow the seemingly illogical train of feelings he has to navigate to get along with you. It’s taxing for him. It’s no secret that women are the better of the two sexes when it comes to subtlety. If men were as good at it as you are, you probably wouldn’t have to read many books like this. So it’s good to think of your manas a not-very-subtle being who needs messages given to him in BIG, BOLD TYPE that he can’t help but understand.

Perfection: I know, I know, you would never expect your man to be perfect. Or, at least you say so, and probably really think so. The reality is often different. If you find yourself often criticizing your man for everything, or finding fault with what he does

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do, it’s a safe bet that there’s a part of you that does want him to be perfect. It’s important to get to the bottom of this if there’s a chance that it’s something you secretly wish for. The best way to do this is to start to change what you focus on, as we’ll talk about more in a later step. When you can focus on rewarding the good, rather than punishing the bad, you’ll be way ahead of the game.

Step 2: Learn to Speak Genie – Communicate your desires so he’ll understand them.

Now that you’re clear on what you actually want out of all this—and what you genie can and can’t do for you—it’s time to get down to telling your genie what’s expected of him.

Let’s get two things straight.

First, your man probably thinks right now that he does plenty for the relationship. He doesn’t think that doing things to make the relationship better is stupid, or not worth his time. He wants to do them, but he often thinks that he already does.

Men tend to see doing things in a relationship as involving both the number of things they do, and how big those things are. One good thing at the end of a month of neglect makes you two square, as far as he can see it. Most women don’t think that way. Many women would much prefer lots of small gestures of love to one big one. Men are just the opposite, and sometimes don’t even notice those little things, because they are so little. A man also might think that if he does one big thing, he’s “owed” something in return.

This normally goes on subconsciously, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

This means that he probably thinks that the one or two ‘big’ things he sees himself as doing—“making the money” tops that list—account for everything he thinks he needs to do in the relationship. It’s your job to help him understand that there’s more to it than that.

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Secondly, if your man saw a clear path of action he could take that would make you really happy, he would take it. He wants you to be happy. But remember that men areresults-oriented. They want to do what works. That’s why he acts the way he does when he wants a particular result, like a date with you early on. So you have to work that into how you approach communicating with your man.

Genies speak respect and appreciation.

When you approach asking your man the things you really want, do so with the idea that he really wants to make you happy. And understand that the thing your man wants most from you is respect. This is a little simplistic, but on some levels it’s true: in general, women want to feel loved, and men want to feel respected.

A man enjoys feeling loved. Who doesn’t? It’s a great feeling. But it doesn’t address his deepest psychological needs the way respect does. Essentially, a man would ratherbe respected than loved, if he had to choose.

A woman enjoys feeling respected: she’d feel something was missing without it. And aman would probably feel that something was missing if he didn’t feel loved. But a mandeeply needs to be respected. In fact, the best way to emasculate your man and makehim feel like a tiny peon who doesn’t matter at all is to treat him with disrespect.

This means you have to take all the berating out of your interaction with him. It doesn’t work, and it makes him feel terrible. Yes, yes, I know, it makes you feel terrible too when he won’t help around the house or contribute to the relationship, butdoing things to make him feel that same way starts the momentum of the relationshipin entirely the wrong direction. We’re trying to make things better, here, not worse.

So try using your power to make your man feel great about himself instead. And remember that you probably have more power to make him feel that way than any other person on the planet. The only person who comes close is his father, but that’s astory for a different book.

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When you come to your man and you ask him for something, it’s often a good idea to ‘dangle’ your appreciation and respect as a reward for doing the thing that you want him to do. We’ll talk more about rewarding good behavior in a minute. Here’s what this might look like.

Let’s say you really want your man to open up about something that’s clearly bothering him, but that he doesn’t seem to want to talk about. You’d be fine to leave him alone on something like this, except he’s acting angry and refusing to talk and it’s making the whole house a miserable place to be.

Say, “Honey, I know how hard you work and how much you put into making our life together amazing. You do a great job of it, and I don’t think anyone else could do it better. I really want to do my part and help support you so you can be the best man you can be. And I know something’s bothering you. Do you want to tell me what it is?”

He may not come out of his shell right then, but he’ll appreciate how you approached the situation. Many men complain that the women in their lives want to intrude on their feelings just when they want to be left alone. When you take the approach that you’re there to support him, and you’re more than willing to make his sharing a really positive experience for him, he’s less likely to feel like you’re barging in on his private thoughts. This means he’s more likely to open up, and less likely to resent your desire to talk to him.

Step 3: Ease In – Ask for little things first.

If you’re trying to get your man to do something, and you know for one reason or another that he’s likely to flatly say no, this is often a helpful tactic to use.

Most people think that the best way to get someone to do a favor for you is to do one for them. Reciprocity, right? It goes against common sense, but reality is exactly the opposite. The best way to get someone to do something for you is to have them do

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something else for you first. Once someone does one nice thing, they’re much more likely to do another one. Especially if you start with the small things first, and then work your way up to the larger thing you really want.

There’s another aspect to this, and it is one that salespeople everywhere understand and use all the time. This is why you so often see incredible deals on basic items in stores or on websites. “How do they make any money on that?” you wonder. But the smart buyer knows that the offer is only good for that bargain item. It doesn’t apply toany of the really good items. So a person shopping sees that offer, and makes a decision to take advantage of it. They’ve already made the decision to buy. Then, the company offers them a slightly better item—at full price—that looks a lot better than the first, cheap item.

So the buyer has now made two, separate decisions. The first one is to buy something. The second one is to buy the slightly bigger, better thing—and to spend more money.

You can apply this same concept to asking your man for things, and see amazing results. But there are a few more things you need to understand before we go any further into this.

Some things about men.

Men are obsessed with the idea of their freedom. They’ll do a lot, up to and including destroying an otherwise great relationship, in order to get it. This explains why many men so often seem to want to withdraw once the relationship gets a little more serious. It also explains why many men stop doing quite so much for the woman of their choice when the two of you get closer together. It’s not just about complacency. It’s about not getting so absorbed in the relationship that they lose what they think of as their identity. Their identity is tied up in how free they seem themselves as being.

Now, what does that have to do with asking for the little things first? If your man starts to feel like you’re telling him what to do—trying to control him, he’ll think—he’s

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much less likely to do what you want. And he’ll get resentful, which is the last way youwant him feeling. Asking him for a small thing, like “honey, can we go out to dinner tonight?” is much more likely to get a “yes” than “We’re going to this restaurant tonight, whether you like it or not.”

Keep this fact in mind, because now we’re going back to how to apply this when usingthe Genie Method.

Be sly.

Here’s the sneaky part: once you get him to commit to going out to dinner, then you can add in the restaurant that you really want to go to. Since he already said “yes” to the first thing, he’s much more likely to say “yes” to the second thing. That’s just human nature.

Now, let’s add in what we know from Step 1. Approach your request with respect and appreciation. Don’t demand anything, or start by saying something like “we never go out to eat anymore.” That’s not going to get you anywhere. That’s complaining, and focusing on what you don’t want. You can see him cringe when you say things like that. He hates it. If you want to catch flies—or dinner at your favorite restaurant—add a little honey to your approach.

“Honey, I’m really tired tonight and I really don’t feel like cooking anything. Would youtake me out to dinner somewhere? It doesn’t have to be anywhere special, but I’d really, really love it,” you might say.

Now you wait. Wait until he’s getting ready to go, and he’s already agreed to take you out somewhere. This is the time to add the second, bigger request.

“Hey, since we’re going out anyway, could we go to that restaurant I really like? I love going there with you, and it would make me really happy.”

Remember: he really does want to make you happy. And now that he’s already agreedto go out, making the change from that to the slightly bigger commitment of going to your particular favorite place doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Even if he can’t take

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you there, he’ll still feel like he’s able to give you some of what you want (taking you out somewhere). And when you reward him for doing that (which you definitely should), he’ll feel great about it, and want to do even more next time.

You’ve broken up the decision into chunks that are easier for him to digest. And he’s less likely to feel like you’re just demanding that he act a certain way or do certain things.

Better yet, even if you don’t get to go out to the place you wanted to go that particular night, you may have just planted the seed for a future, surprise visit. He knows now that he can take you there and it will make you happy. And that’s what he wants to do. When he sees an opportunity to do it, then, he’s much more likely to takeit.

Step 4: Housebreak Your Genie – Use rewards and boundaries.

You got your dinner out at that expensive restaurant, and I bet it was delicious. Now, it’s time to take the next step, and plant some seeds for your man to do even more down the road.

Remember that it’s your job to secretly train your man—don’t tell him that’s what you’re doing, though. You have to offer him rewards, and set boundaries that he cannot cross, so that he understands what behavior is acceptable and what behavior is not when it comes to his relationship with you.

Remember that a man who is given no instructions or boundaries at all will do more orless what he feels like doing. And if the Leaning Tower of Pizza Boxes all over the living room is not your idea of a fun and romantic place to call home, you’re going to have to help him learn better.

Rewards.

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There are different kinds of rewards, though it doesn’t much matter which you chooseto use. He’ll appreciate any of these kinds of rewards, so how you use them is pretty much up to you.

Emotional rewards.

Emotional rewards are exactly what they sound like. If you wanted to emotionally reward your man, you’d give him respect and appreciation. And lots of praise.

Remember when Sheila came home from work and her man was waiting for her to tellher about the surprise vacation? She spent a lot of time afterwards thanking him, and finding little things she could do for him to show him how much she really appreciatedthat gesture.

“That was awesome how you surprised me. I’m going to remember that forever. You are absolutely the best man I could ever want to be with.” In this case, she had absolutely zero trouble being genuine. In real-life cases, on the other hand, and especially early on, it might be a bit harder.

Physical rewards.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: yes, sex counts as a physical reward. But so do hugs and kisses, foot massages—any kind of physical expressions of love and respect you can give him. He’ll love these things, and they let him know in a really practical way how much you care about him and about the relationship. They also let him knowin a very real way how happy you feel as a result of what he’s done for you.

It’s especially a good idea to mix the two. Check out the example below for a good idea of what this might look like when you apply it.

Boundaries.

Setting a boundary means changing your behavior. It means that once you tell your man how things have to be, that you have to act as if the way you said they were

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going to be was already true. And don’t budge. This often means not doing things thatyou feel comfortable doing, or doing things you feel uncomfortable doing. So it’s okay if this step is hard at first. It will pay off if you keep at it.

Remember our story about the guy who left his clothes in a trail on the floor of the house? Well, Sheila read this book, and here’s what she decided to do:

“Honey, I know you’re really tired when you get home from work,” she said to her man. “I’m really grateful that you work so hard to help support me. And I’d appreciateall your hard work even more if you could put your clothes away when you took them off. I can’t pick up after you anymore.”

He nodded absent-mindedly, and turned the TV volume up. Remember, Sheila’s husband wasn’t the most attentive fella, before she started using the Genie Method. But her boundary has been set. She stopped repeatedly asking him to pick up after himself, but more importantly, she alsostopped picking up after him.

Sheila may very well come home again to find clothes everywhere. What does she do?She lives by her boundary. She does not clean up after him. She waits for him to notice that the house is suddenly not quite as clean as it was last week. He might ask her about it, seeming not to remember that she asked him only a few days ago to start picking up after himself.

But she’s empowered now, with her new knowledge, so she doesn’t get mad at him for not remembering. She knows this is a process. More importantly, she knows he’s probably pretty out of practice at being her genie. She reminds him that she told him a few days ago that she’s not cleaning up his clothes after him anymore. He might notbe too pleased with her, but eventually he puts his clothes away.

And let’s say, for the sake of our example, that he’s pretty good about putting his clothes away for a few days after that. Sheila remembers something she read about rewarding good behavior, so she joins him on the couch during a commercial break.

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“Honey, I really appreciate you picking up your stuff. I feel really good when I come home and the house is just as clean as when I left. Thank you.”

Then, she comes up with a reward she can give him. She’s a pretty good cook when she wants to be, so she makes him a special dinner that Friday night. Big greasy hamburgers with quadruple bacon and melted Swiss cheese—his absolute favorite.

“What’s the occasion?” he says, mouth full of hamburger.

“I came home to a clean house today,” she says, beaming at him. “And it felt great. I was just in a really good mood, so I wanted to do something nice for you.”

“Mmmurffmmgrmrb yomff,” he replies. Some hamburger spews out of his mouth and onto the table.

Okay, so we’ll work on table manners next, she thinks. But she’s smiling while she thinks it, because now she knows for sure just how well the Genie Method works.

Sheila used to make demands of her man. She asked him for months to clean up afterhimself, and he didn’t do it. So she had to. She nagged him about it constantly, and hehated it. She hated having to do it. It was a bad situation all around.

But when she switched from demanding something from him to simply expecting it of him—and rewarding him when he lived up to her expectations—she saw a change in behavior. She set her boundary, and rewarded him when he did what he was supposed to do.

Sheila did everything right just now, and the chances that you’ll do the same the first time you try this aren’t very high. This is because you’re not just trying to change your

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man’s behavior. You’re also changing your own.

Give Him a Gentle Nudge – Remind him of your wishes.

Sheila’s man was doing great for a while, and the house looked fantastic. But he started slacking off again a few weeks later. It’s natural, of course. And Sheila didn’t get mad.

Sheila knows that the genies called “men” are forgetful beings. And there’s a reason for it. Men tend to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else. It goes back to whatthe male brain is best at: problem-solving. When a man is working on a particular problem, he focuses in on it, and most of the other things in life that might otherwise seem important just kind of fade into the background. And that can translate into lots of forgotten things—like anniversaries and picking up his clothes—when his mind is absorbed like that.

So Sheila’s man started throwing his clothes on the floor again. Sheila sprang into action. She waited for a commercial break when he didn’t have his hand down his shorts scratching at himself, and sat down next to her man on the couch.

“Honey,” she began. “You’ve been really good about keeping things clean around the house, and it has been awesome. I really appreciate that you do that for me. But I noticed lately you’ve been leaving stuff on the floor again. Is something going on at work?”

“I’m just distracted lately,” he said.

“Let me know if you want to talk about it,” Sheila told him. “I know how hard you work and I always want to help support you if I can.”

Next thing she knew, her man was explaining to her why his boss was actually and idiot (we won’t go into that here—it was really boring). She listened patiently and

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attentively, and offered support and encouragement where she could. Her man felt heard, and cared for. When he was winding down, and seemed to be feeling a little better, she gently reminded him again about the clothes.

“I know you can handle whatever comes your way,” she told him. “You’ve always comethrough before, especially when it comes to working and taking care of me. So I understand how you get distracted by that stuff at work. And I’d really appreciate it if you could just make sure you throw your clothes into the hamper when you get home.”

He didn’t seem to hear her when she said that last part, but lo and behold—when she got home from work the next day, his clothes were nowhere to be seen. Why was he suddenly motivated to change?

He felt good about himself because he felt like Sheila really cared about him. She was listening to him, and really interested in what was going on in his life. She was also really supportive—I mean, did you hear that little speech she gave him? That was inspiring stuff.

He felt good about the state of the relationship, and he knew how happy it would make her if he remembered to do that. And so he did it.

Since then, Sheila’s man hasn’t always remembered to pick up his clothes, but he’s definitely a lot better about it than he used to be. And his table manners are better, now, too. He’s improved in pretty much every department since Sheila read this book, and she’s felt great about where her relationship is headed. She knows that her man really wants to make her happy, and when she sees him doing it, she knows that the Genie Method works for her.

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Scenarios – “The Housebroken Genie”

Of course, it’s easy to stand up and pontificate about general situations, but what about the specifics? It can be hard to take general ideas or principles and turn them into real steps you can actually take with your man. Especially when you’re close to that situation. Or, it might not be clear how these steps apply to your particular situation.

Sheila’s husband was doing really well for a while. He got better and better about picking up his things, and Sheila was really happy about it. Pretty soon, he got into a habit of doing it, and she didn’t have to worry much about rewarding him anymore. But surprisingly, she had found she really enjoyed doing little extra things now, so she kept finding things to do.

But things weren’t perfect, and Sheila knew better than to wish for perfection. But when a new problem arose, she was ready to take it on.

Case Study #1: He withdraws.

Sheila began to notice that her husband seemed to be withdrawing from her. He wouldn’t talk about what was going on with him, and when she’d ask him about his day, he’d just say “Good,” and then zone back out. The house was clean, but her man seemed like a couch zombie.

Action Plan

Sheila looked at the first step, and got really clear about what she wanted. She understood that she really wanted her man to open up to her. She also knew enough to understand that his withdrawing over a small thing like how his day was didn’t haveto be a big deal. Instead, she knew that what she really wanted, her real wish, was that he’d open up with her about things that were really important to him. She wantedhim to be a part of her life.

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Once she had a clear idea of what she actually wanted, she communicated those desires in a way that maintained a high level of respect for her man, and gave him appreciation.

“Honey,” she said one day after work. “I know you work really hard and you’re tired when you come home, but I’m always here to listen when you want to talk. Sometimes, when you don’t talk to me it feels like something is wrong. I really love it when you make me a part of your life, and I want to be here for you when you need me. Even if it’s no big deal, I’d love to hear about your day.”

He didn’t open up to her at first, but she kept repeating that process every few days, and eventually he did start to talk more. He told her about his day, and got his frustrations out, and actually felt better afterwards.

When he did, Sheila knew just what to do. She jumped into action with Step 4, and she rewarded him right away. Firstly, she gave him her full attention and really listened. It helped her husband to feel like she really did care about him. He actually really appreciated that.

She didn’t have to do much reminding him how to behave, though, because once he got started talking, he found that he actually enjoyed having a listening ear. But it’s not always that easy, as you’ll see in the next case study.

Case Study #2: He’s stopped listening.

Before long, Sheila’s husband would talk to her all the time about what was going on

in his life. He got to be a real chatterbox, actually. Of course, it was better some days

than on others.

However, as time went on, Sheila noticed that, while he was having no problem at all

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talking about his life and his day, he had trouble listening to her. He’d interrupt her

when she was trying to tell him about her day, and he would read into what she was

saying—all sorts of things that had nothing to do with what she was talking about.

Remember when she came home and told him about the baby her friend Valerie was

having? He thought she was hinting that she wanted kids, when she wasn’t talking

about that at all! That kind of stuff was happening all the time. Here’s what she did

about it.

Action Plan.

Sheila already knew what she wanted pretty clearly. She wanted her man to listen

really well. She wanted his attention. And so she jumped right to figuring out a way to

communicate that to her man.

She started with something small. She knew she needed to get her man to listen to

her once, so she could reward that behavior, and he would start to get the message.

So she waited until a problem came up that she could take to him, and ask him for

help. Men love helping.

“Honey,” she said. “I’ve been having this problem, and I’m not sure what to do. I was

hoping you could help me.”

“I’ve got problems, too! Oh, you wouldn’t believe…” he said. He got excited, since he

thought now would be a great time to talk about his problems.

Sheila set her boundary. “You know I love listening to you, but this is really troubling

me right now. Would you tell me what you think about this? I won’t be able to really

listen until I figure something out.” She wasn’t accusing or threatening; she just made

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sure that he understood it was important to her that he listen.

“Okay, shoot,” he said. Sheila told him what was bothering her.

“My boss wants me to start showing up an hour earlier to work. He says he read in

some self-help book for managers that employees get more done the earlier they start

work.”

“That’s nonsense!” her man said.

“I know, right?” Sheila felt overjoyed that her man was listening. And he actually got

emotionally involved. When he offered his advice, after Sheila finished talking, she

listened attentively.

“Thank you so much, honey. I was really stressed about that, but now I feel tons

better.” She gave him a big hug, and asked him what he wanted for dinner.

She rewarded her husband by cooking for him (which is almost always a good idea),

and listening to his advice when it came to her problem. He got to feel heard, and

really important in her life, as well as respected by her, since he was the one she

chose to come to when she really needed help with something important.

Case Study #3: He won’t help around the house.

Sheila was trying really hard to practice the Genie Method, and she was doing her best

to listen to her husband talk about his day at work that day, but she was having a

hard time focusing.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. She could hear it from downstairs.

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Her husband kept talking. He was getting animated, telling her a story about

something funny his friend did the last time they went fishing together (it wasn’t a

very funny story, but Sheila was glad he was talking to her, at least).

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. It was driving her insane, like Chinese water torture. The

upstairs faucet had been leaking for weeks. Her husband kept promising to fix it, but

he never seemed to get around to it.

Action Plan

It was easy to figure out what she really wanted, in this case. She needed that faucet

to stop dripping, ASAP. In fact, she was going a little crazy listening to it. In fact, she

was starting to suspect that if she had to listen to it much longer, she’d snap and

completely lose it and start attacking people. The only other person in the house was

her husband, so she feared for his safety.

But instead, she figured out a way to communicate to her man that she needed him to

fix the faucet.

“Honey,” she said (she waited until the end of his story, of course, and made sure to

laugh in all the right places). “That faucet has been dripping for what seems like a

thousand years. I have tried to fix it, and I absolutely cannot figure it out. You’re the

expert on that kind of stuff in this house. Would you please, please help me?”

She didn’t use an accusatory tone, or a tone that sounded like she was exasperated

with him. She honestly wanted his help.

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“I would appreciate your help so much,” she went on. Her husband was starting to get

the idea that doing those few extra things often meant that he got rewards of some

kind, and surprisingly, he sprang right into action. Remember, also, that men love

solving people’s problems.

When Sheila made it clear that this was a time he could solve a problem for her, he

jumped at the opportunity.

Half an hour later, Sheila heard the dripping upstairs finally stop. She breathed a deep

sigh of relief. The house was quiet. For a minute. Then she heard a bang! and the

sound of her husband yelling curse words through the house.

She smiled to herself, and went to go and see how he’d hurt himself.

Later on, after she’d given him all the attention he could possibly want as a reward for

fixing the faucet, and hitting his head on the underside of the sink in the process (he

got extra attention for that), she felt great, and so did he. Things went especially well

later that evening, and her husband forgot all about his aching head…

Case Study #4: He won’t give you the things that you want.

Now that the relationship was really starting to go well for Sheila, and she was

starting to feel like she was really getting the things she wanted out of it, she decided

to go further. She remembered Step 3, and she’d started with the little things—like

getting her husband to talk to her about his day, and then getting him to listen really

well when she talked. And she got all of it done without her man ever suspecting that

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she was trying to change his behavior.

Now, she was ready to take the next step, and start asking for the bigger things. She

wanted him to start doing things for her. She wanted to go on vacation with him

somewhere, to be specific (not Fiji). Any vacation was fine with her.

Action Plan.

She already clearly knew what she wanted, so the first step wasn’t hard for her. She

just had to find a way to communicate that to her man.

“Hey, honey,” she said to him one day. He was listening attentively, she noticed, and

she was quietly thankful for that. “I’ve been so happy with you lately, and you’ve been

doing such a good job, that I think we deserve a vacation.”

“Oh, we can’t really do that,” he said. He had a list of reasons, too. “I don’t know if we

have the money right now, and plus I really need to be at work for the next couple of

months. They really need me right now.”

“I know you’re important to making sure things get done at work,” Sheila said. She

knew that respect and appreciation are the language of genies, so she didn’t berate

him or contradict him directly. “I’m really proud of you for that, too. But if there’s ever

a chance you could get away, I think we’d both have a really good time. It would

make me melt!” And she gave him a big, wet, sloppy kiss to let him know how much

she loved him.

He was feeling pretty good about the relationship after that, and Sheila was already

rewarding him for so many other things—like how well he was listening, and talking

about his life, and picking up his clothes—that he started thinking of a way to take her

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on that vacation she really wanted.

It took a couple months, actually, but lo and behold: Sheila did come home from work

one day to find her man waiting to take her on the vacation. He actually surprised her,

too. Remember that story from earlier? Thatwas how she made it happen.

Sheila did a great job of turning her man into a genie. But she got something more

important than an attentive listener, a fixed faucet, and a trip to a beach (that wasn’t

in Fiji). She learned that whatever the situation might be, she can get what she wants

out of her relationship, and she can get her man to act like her man, and not just do

whatever he feels like doing.

Read through to the end of the book to find out what Sheila ultimately decided to do.

“What to Do with Misbehaving Genies”

Things aren’t always as easy for all of us as they were for Sheila. She had a pretty

easy time of it, honestly. And for many women, that simply isn’t the case. You may

find that you are in a relationship with a man who simply does not want to play along.

Or, he may seem like he’s just so set in his ways and so demanding that you can’t turn

him into a genie, no matter how hard you try.

“What if I try all this, and he just won’t open up emotionally?”

A lot of women find out about this technique and use it to try and get their man to

open up. It’s a common wish. But many times, they find that they are dissatisfied with

what comes out. Their man, it turns out, isn’t just waiting to spill all his deepest

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emotions on them just because they made it clear they would like that.

That does not, however, mean that he doesn’t care. It also doesn’t mean that he

doesn’t have any emotions. Rather, what’s most likely happening in a case like this is

you’re dealing with a man who is more naturally emotionally reserved. These men do

exist, though they’re not as common as many women think they are.

So, there are two possibilities here.

First, you may be dealing with a man who just has a really hard time talking about his

emotions. He has a hard time opening up. This may be because of the way he was

raised. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of his family will necessarily also be

reserved. He may have learned to hide his emotions in early childhood, maybe

because he was punished for having them or showing them. It’s hard to overcome

that kind of early training, but it can be done.

The second is that your man may be nervous about sharing his feelings with you. He

may have had traumatic experiences in the past, experience strong emotions that he

doesn’t know what to do with, or he may have trust issues from a previous

relationship.

All of these issues are fixable. But you have to be willing to put in the work.

With a man like one of these two types, it’s important that you not give up after the

first try, or even after a few tries. It may take months to really get him out of his shell.

If he’s had a lot of traumatic experiences or an upbringing that makes him want to

hide or minimize his emotions, it may take a really long time to get him completely out

of his shell.

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But as you apply these techniques, you will start to see small changes. Lay on the

rewards heavily when you do see them, however small they may be. The more

positive the reaction such a guy gets when he does finally open up, the more likely he

is to start to feel that it is okay to share his feeling with you, and the more likely he

will be later on to want to do so again.

“He just won’t stop misbehaving, no matter how much I ask him.”

This is a common one, but fortunately, it only comes from a misunderstanding. In all

likelihood, this does not mean that your man is hopeless, or that you are helpless to

change his behavior. In fact, the Genie Method works really well on such men, but you

have to be ready to set boundaries and stick by them.

Setting boundaries is not easy, especially when it comes to things that your man

expects you to do, because you’ve been doing them for so long. These include things

like Sheila had to do when she was picking up after her man on a regular basis.

She asked him repeatedly to pick up his clothes, and while he said over and over

again that he would, he simply kept forgetting, because Sheila kept covering for him.

Most women do this naturally.

Covering for your man is very kind of you, and nobody can fault you for wanting to

make sure that he is taken care of, and help make up for whatever shortcomings he

may have. But at some point, you just have to let him feel the effects of his behavior.

This does mean yelling at him, or trying to create some sort of artificial consequences

for his actions. That’s what his mom would do, and we’re trying to avoid turning you

into his mother—at all costs! That’s the least romantic relationship you could have

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with your man.

However, you do have to be able to set your boundaries. Without yelling, berating, or

using guilt as your weapons, you can simply say “here is how things are from now on.”

You can even get firm with him. In fact, you may have to.

“Darling, I know you work hard and you don’t want to spend your time cleaning up

when you come home. I wouldn’t ask you to work all day and then come home and

slave all night. That wouldn’t be fair. But I’m tired, too, when I come home, so I really

need you to start picking up after yourself.” Then you must stop doing it. That’s the

important part. What you say is only of relative importance, designed to get as much

of your message as possible into his ears before he closes them and zones out again.

You may have to endure some unpleasantness at first. But stand your ground.

Eventually, this will work. He may wonder why you’re not cleaning up after him

anymore, and he may come right out and ask you to start doing it again. Don’t. You

have to stand by your boundaries, or they stop meaning anything.

In fact, if you set a boundary, and then go back on it, you may be setting up a cycle

whereby your man believes that if he just holds out long enough, eventually you’ll

cave and do things his way. You have to hold onto your ability to say no. I know you’re

not unreasonable—you’re not going to use this to get out of doing anything for your

man. By the very fact that you’re reading this book, I know that you want your

relationship to be a good one. And that means doing things for your man. But that

does not mean that you should do everything.

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And you have to persevere. These techniques work. If you’re not seeing the results

you want, you may have to redouble your efforts. That means looking for the good in

what changes you do see in your man, since this is a process. Don’t get frustrated—

get results.

What to do when the romance is gone.

This request is a common one. Early on in a relationship, things seem absolutely effortless. You get over that first blush of nervousness in the first few dates, and things start to go really well. It’s easy to be romantic early on. He’s probably a lot more motivated in those first few months to go above and beyond—he’s trying to impress you. But as time goes on and the relationship starts to mature, you get more comfortable. Suddenly, it’s just not as exciting anymore, and it really starts to seem like that romantic swept-off-your-feet feeling is fading.

Nothing is wrong that you could specifically point to, the relationship in general seems to have lost its romance. But since that’s not something you can really explicitly ask for, some women might want to know a bit more specifically about this.

How this wish works.

When you’re asking to bring back the romance in the relationship, or trying to get your man to do things that maybe are hard to wish for—things like surprises and spontaneous gestures of love.

Since you can’t ask for those directly—that would kill all the fun—what you have to do is foster a romantic feeling in him.

Your man has circuits in his brain that you don’t have. They’re the circuits that get himgoing when he sees a really attractive woman touching her hair or smiling at him.

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These things probably don’t have much of an impact on you, but they have a powerfulimpact on him. Here’s how to use those circuits to get him feeling romantic. When he’sfeeling that way, he’ll suddenly start getting more motivated to do romantic things. And things he does that come from a genuine desire to ‘woo’ you—like in early courtship—should perfectly fit the bill of “bringing back the romance.”

Stay away.

Many couples suffer from overexposure. In other words, you just see too much of each other for the romance to really flourish. Why? Because part of romance is mystery. That’s why so much of it goes missing when the only time you see your man is when he’s in his jammies, and not really trying to impress you. And feeling like you have to impress someone you’re really comfortable with, or who you live with, even, can seem difficult.

It wasn’t difficult early on, because you were both trying so hard to impress each other. He was always on his best behavior, and was working really hard to make sure you were pleased with him. And you always looked your best when you saw him.

So how do you get back to that? Stay away.

Find ways that you can be apart from your man as often as possible for a while. See as little of him as you possibly can, for several weeks if you can manage it. Have otherplans, somewhere to be, and a reason to be away as often as possible.

This has two effects. First, it helps melt away any of the frustrations that may have built up as a result of living together or spending all your time together. When you’re that close with someone that often, you tend to fight about things, regardless of how close or in love you might be. But you find that, when you’re away for a while, or when you just don’t see him that often for a few weeks, those things tend to seem

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less important, and farther away.

Second, you start to miss him. That means that you’ll be even happier when you do get to see him again, and you’re more likely to take the time to make sure that it is a special encounter when you do. How do you make sure it is? And, more importantly, how do you get him on board? Psychology comes to your aid, here.

The power of flirting.

When was the last time you really flirted with your man? If he’s the guy you picked upat the bar last night, probably very recently. However, if you’re in a committed relationship, it may have been a while.

What you don’t know is just how powerful flirting can be. Especially if your man hasn’treally seen you around lately. Men’s brains respond very strongly to a woman who flirts with them. He can’t help it. If he finds you attractive, and you make eye contact with him and smile, it actually arouses him a little bit. Men are visual creatures when itcomes to romance, so look your best, and flirt with him a little bit.

Finding interesting ways to flirt with your husband can be a fun project. In fact, the more fun you have with this, the better your ideas will likely work.

Kiss him: This is so simple, it often gets overlooked. The next time you see your man, just give him a big, long kiss. Drag it out for as long as possible. If you can fall onto a bed or couch while kissing, all the better.

Leave him a love note: Get creative with where you put these. On the mirror wherehe’ll see it while he is getting ready is a great place to do it. Or, if you pack him a lunch, try putting it there, as well. Tape something to his steering wheel, or leave it where he can find it when he comes home from work.

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Dress up: Be ready for him if he gets home before you, or if he works and you don’t. Get really dolled up for him. It doesn’t have to be dressy, just get as sexy as you possibly can.

Sexting: This definitely doesn’t have to be anything gross, but think back to what youliked to say to your man when you first got together. The things that you could tell really got him going. Put these in a text message, and send them to him when he isn’texpecting it. Make sure you send it to the right person, however—nothing’s more embarrassing than a sext sent to the wrong person! (“Sorry, Mom—that really wasn’t for you.”)

These ideas will help bring some of the romance back. He’ll start feeling romantic, andyou’ll start to notice a change in his behavior, as well. When he knows that he can do little things and they’ll make you really happy, he will start to do them.

These ideas also make great ways to reward your man in little ways when he does grant you your wishes. The more rewards he feels like he gets from the things he does, the more motivated and enthusiastic he will be to do them!

Now, there’s one thing you had better be ready for: if you flirt with your man, he may very well want to take things further, so avoid doing these things on days you really don’t feel like having sex. Then again, sex is a great way to bring the romance back—especially if you can find some ways to spice it up a bit.

Now Go Enjoy Your Wishes

As you put all this into practice, you’ll start to see results. Really fast. And most likely, they’ll be really big results, too. Armed with the right knowledge, and approaching situations with a better understanding now, you’re much more likely to get what you want, without having to fight with your man, berate him, or make him feel bad about himself.

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Just in case you’re as forgetful as Sheila’s man, here’s a cheat sheet you can use to keep the concepts fresh in your mind.

Your man really wants to do things for you to make you happy.

- When he doesn’t, it’s because he thinks things are okay, or he doesn’t know what to

do.

You have to learn to speak his language.

-Men don’t communicate with feelings or understand them as well as women do.

-Use logical communication to get your point through.

Your man speaks the language of respect and appreciation: respect him and

appreciate him, and he’ll want to do more.

-Men are logical thinkers.

-He wants to do things that get results, and your happiness is a result he’ll work hard

to get.

Be really clear about what you want him to do.

-You have to line up your thoughts, words, and actions.

-Make sure you’re asking for the things you really want.

Tell him what you want him to do.

-He can’t read your mind.

-No man is going to be perfect right up front.

Don’t get mad if he doesn’t change right away: this is a process.

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-You have to change your behavior as well as his.

-Start looking for ways to focus on the good things he does, rather than the bad

things.

Reward him when he does really well.

-There are emotional rewards, and physical ones.

-Emotional rewards include things like appreciating him or complimenting him.

-Physical rewards can include hugs, foot rubs, or even sex.

Use boundaries rather than punishments to deal with bad behavior.

-Punishing a man for bad behavior just makes him pull away from you.

-This is often how cheating gets started.

-When you set a boundary, stick to it. He’ll get the message.

Ask him for the little things first, then ask for the bigger things.

-Men hate to feel like their woman is controlling them or telling them what to do.

- Once he’s committed to the smaller thing, he’s more likely to agree to the bigger

thing.

Always, always, always be genuine.

– Men can smell fake appreciation or respect from miles away.

–

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We started this with a story, so I think a story might make for a fitting ending, as well.

A(nother) story.

Sheila and her husband were walking down the beach. The sun was going down over the ocean, and the air was just starting to cool as the hot day became the chilly night.The wind ruffled Sheila’s hair, and made her man’s hair stand up on end. He looked pretty ridiculous like that, but Sheila thought it was cute.

They were barefoot, and the sand was still warm from the hot day. It would be hours before the sand was completely cooled. Sheila could hear gulls crying overhead; they were the last few gulls of the evening. Soon, all would be quiet. There was no one else around, but Sheila and her man barely talked. They were both so wrapped up in the scenery around them, in the total peace of the moment, they hardly needed to.

It’s anyone’s guess what Sheila’s man was thinking about, but Sheila was thinking about how far he’d come since that day she headed over to her grandmother’s house, frustrated and confused as to why this man simply refused to help her do anything. He seemed like a different man, now. And it was a safe bet he felt like one, too.

What used to be a frustrating relationship had turned into a great one. Sheila was justthinking how truly happy she was, how she never thought her relationship could get as good as it had the last few years.

Something occurred to her, and she stopped walking. Her husband took a few more steps before realizing she’d stopped, and turned to look at her. Sheila held the lamp inone hand. She’d carried it around all day. Now, she looked out over the beach, spread out before her, and reared back.

She threw the lamp as far as she could, and it landed a ways away, thumping in the sand.

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She smiled, and went right back to walking down the beach.

They walked on, but Sheila’s man looked confused. Sheila used the Genie Method, andhe opened right up to tell her about it.

“What was that about?” he said. “Why’d you just throw that oldteapot away?”

“Long story,” she told him. But she was smiling to herself while she said it.

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